


so close that your eyes close (as I fall)

by No_Illusions



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, and actions, but in temporary old guard fashion, despite what joe may think, i promise there is no permanent character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28676127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/No_Illusions/pseuds/No_Illusions
Summary: Joe isn’t entirely sure how he’d made it to their house in Malta. He can’t remember the trip, can only remember walking away from his family, and then suddenly he’d been looking at the door to their home, and had known with absolute certainty that he could never, ever set foot inside of it again.So he lays here now, in the backyard, waiting, waiting. Time passes. It is light, and then it is dark. Again, again, again. Distantly, he thinks he might be shivering. Distantly, he feels hunger and thirst clawing at his insides. Sometimes his eyes close, and he thinks he dies. But he always, always wakes up again.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 10
Kudos: 201





	so close that your eyes close (as I fall)

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is a misquotation from Pablo Neruda's "Sonnet XVII." No, I cannot find it in myself to be sorry. I was always going to use a line from it as a title someday. I really wanted to use something from the second stanza -- "I love you as the plant that never blooms / but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; / thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, / risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body" -- because come on, that's so perfect for this fic. But so is this entire poem (thank you, Marwan Kenzari), so here we are. 
> 
> See the end notes for more thoughts on the general likelihood of the scenario in this fic. (Because I do have thoughts, and I wrote the fic anyways.)

Joe makes his way back to their house in Malta. He doesn’t go inside. Instead, he lays down in the garden, among Nicky’s herbs, stares at the sky, and waits. 

He doesn’t even have a body to wait next to. The explosion had been huge, and by the time Joe had gotten back up, there had been nothing. Nothing left in the spot where Nicky had stood, mere feet from the bomb. No pieces bigger than a few inches of burnt flesh. Nothing. 

Joe thought he’d stayed there, screaming Nicky’s name, for days before Andy and Nile had pulled him away. 

It had been another few days, maybe weeks, Joe wasn’t sure, before he’d looked around himself and realized that they had taken him to a safehouse. He was tucked in a bed. Nile was sitting in a chair by his side, gazing at him with concerned eyes, tears running down her cheeks. She was holding his hand. 

Joe had pulled away, stood up, and walked out of the room, then out of the house. Distantly, he’d heard Nile and Andy calling for him, but their voices had slid off his back like water off oil. Joe was no longer anything that could be reached by words. 

Deep inside of himself, in the most essential part of his soul, the one that spoke in Nicky’s voice, he knew that he should pull himself together. He needed to be there for Nile. Andy was mortal, and he needed to help Nile. He couldn’t leave her alone. But the sound of Nicky’s voice ringing in his head made Joe want to scream and cover his ears. He shoved away the words before he let himself understand their meaning. He could no longer be touched by words, even in that voice. 

He isn’t entirely sure how he’d made it to their house in Malta. He can’t remember the trip, can only remember walking away from his family, and then suddenly he’d been looking at the door to their home, and had known with absolute certainty that he could never, ever set foot inside of it again. 

So he lays here now, in the backyard, waiting, waiting. Time passes. It is light, and then it is dark. Again, again, again. Distantly, he thinks he might be shivering. Distantly, he feels hunger and thirst clawing at his insides. Sometimes his eyes close, and he thinks he dies. But he always, always wakes up again. 

He thinks, at some point, that he sees Andy and Nile standing over him, looking down. He doesn’t know if they’re real, doesn’t care. Joe wonders if this is what it’s like to have a funeral. He feels that he is laying in his grave, looking up at the mourners who are in turn looking down at him, knowing that he is far, far beyond their reach. They are right. 

Eventually, Andy and Nile leave.

He thinks he sees Booker, once. The man kneels over him, takes his hand. The other man’s skin is warm, alive, and to Joe it only feels  _ wrong. _

_ I am not alive, _ he wants to say.  _ You think I am here, like you, and you are wrong. I am gone, like him.  _ Please,  _ let me be gone like him. _

Booker opens his mouth and says things. They are probably things about grief, about how he understands. But he does not understand, and Joe is no longer anything that can be reached by words. 

Time passes. Joe does not know how much time, and does not care. Time passes regardless. It always has, and Joe will not fight it. He will only wait. 

He thinks that the others still visit, sometimes. 

When Nile comes, he feels the ghosts of touches on what was once his body. He thinks that she is brushing off the dirt and leaves that are slowly accumulating on him. 

_ It is unnecessary _ , he wants to tell her.  _ You can let the earth have me. If it wants me, I do not mind. _

Sometimes, there is the brush of lips on his forehead. Nile’s lips, Andy’s lips. But never  _ his  _ lips. 

Time passes. It is hot out, and then it is colder. It is warm, then not. Over and over again.

Joe waits.

Then one day, when he opens his eyes after what was presumably yet another death, there are arms around him. 

_ Finally _ , Joe thinks with unspeakable, exhausted relief. He knows those arms, but he is too tired to move, to turn his head, to say anything. He did not think that he would be this tired in the afterlife. But then again, he had lived for a very long time. When Andy died, she would probably sleep for  _ years _ .

The arms carry him. Joe curls into the warm body, breathing in its familiar scent. 

_ I have been waiting for this _ , he wants to say. But he is so, so tired.

Their corner of the afterlife looks exactly like their house in Malta. 

Joe wonders if someday, Andy and Quynh will join them in a house next door. Will they finally meet Lykon? 

Why, he wonders, did they all have to live so long to earn this release? 

Hands bathe him. There is the snip of scissors in his hair, and the soft caress of warm clothes. Hands encourage him to take small sips of water, then broth. 

_ Nicky _ , he wants to say. But he is too tired. 

“Sleep, Joe.” They are the first words to reach him in an eternity. They cling to his soul, and his soul clings back.

Joe sleeps. 

When he wakes, the arms are still around him. He recognizes their bed in Malta. It smells musty, unused. It is odd that there is dust in the afterlife, Joe thinks. But Nicky has always hated dusting, and has probably been putting it off until Joe can do it. 

“Nicolo,” Joe whispers. The process of speaking feels unfamiliar to him, but this particular word could never truly feel foreign. 

Nicky is watching him, eyes bright with unspilled tears. 

“Yusuf,” he whispers. 

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Joe tells him. It was meant to be a joke, but Joe knows that it sounds painfully earnest. 

Nicky blinks. “What?” he asks, confused. 

“I tried,” Joe tells him. “I tried to join you sooner. But I couldn’t die. I just kept waking up. I don’t know why I wasn’t allowed to come sooner.”

Nicky’s lip trembles. “No, Joe,” he whispers. He sounds heartbroken. “No, Joe, we’re not dead.”

The words don’t make sense. Joe stares at him, confused. 

“We’re not dead. We’re still alive, Joe,” Nicky tells him. 

“What?” Joe asks, his voice raw. 

“We’re alive.”

Joe shakes his head. “No. You’re dead. So I’m dead. How else could you be here?”

A horrible fear begins to dawn. 

“Are you real?” Joe whispers. “Am I imagining you?” 

Nicky is crying in earnest now, hugging Joe tighter. 

“I’m real, Yusuf, I swear it. But we’re alive,” he says, voice breaking.

Joe shakes his head, tries to push away. 

If he’s alive, this can’t be Nicky holding him.  _ Who is touching him? _ Is it Andy, Nile, Booker? Is his brain so far gone that it has overlaid their familiar hands with Nicky’s? 

Joe is afraid, so afraid. He is afraid of waking up from this hallucination, but he is also afraid of being here any longer. This will break him, one way or another. He is already broken, as broken as he thought he could be. But this will be worse. To have this, and then lose it, will be worse. This cruel trick will utterly destroy him, and he does not know what that will look like, does not know how this can all be more awful than it already is, and he is afraid, so afraid, to find out.

“Andy, please,” he gasps. Joe is panicking now, his breath coming in short, incomplete huffs. “Please don’t do this to me. Please, just let me die, I don’t want -- I don’t want --” But he can’t speak anymore, can’t breathe, can’t fight not-Nicky’s arms as they pull him closer. 

Joe whimpers. The smell of Nicky is overpowering, so  _ right _ , that a distant part of him is impressed with his own imagination. 

Not-Nicky is talking, and Joe can’t breathe. He clings to the voice, because hallucination or no, Joe is weak, and Nicky has always been his anchor. 

“I was killed by the bomb, but I didn’t die, Yusuf. I woke up and there were people searching my body. They were amazed when they realized I was alive. I couldn’t find you, didn’t want to ask about you because I was sure you were still dead and I didn’t want them to realize that you would also wake up. I didn’t know who they were, but I think they were the same people who set the bomb in the first place. They took me with them when they left. 

“I don’t think they’d intended to take prisoners, but they were so interested in how I was alive and my healing. So they took me. I was too injured to fight them, at first, and by the time I was healed they had me secured. 

“A lot of the time, they left me alone, but they kept me drugged and chained. I couldn’t get away. I’m sorry, Joe. I _ tried _ , but I was so out of it.”

“What happened?” Joe whispers despite himself. His breathing has evened out a bit, although he doesn’t know when or how. He is dangerously close to believing Nicky -- not-Nicky?

“Nile happened.” Joe hears the smile in Nicky’s voice. “According to Andy, they drifted for a while, without you. And then one day Nile woke up, drank some coffee, folded her arms, and said,  _ The universe would never do this to Joe. I don’t believe it. _ So they started looking at the explosion, at the video footage, and eventually they realized what had happened. It took them a while to find me, even then. But they kept looking, and eventually they did.”

“They never told me,” Joe whispers. “I didn’t know.”

Nicky sobs once, suddenly, and Joe shudders at the sound. “They tried,” Nicky says, and he sounds heartbroken. “They did tell you, but they said you didn’t answer. They said you haven’t answered them in  _ years. _ ”

Joe doesn’t say that he hasn’t  _ heard _ them in years, either.

“How long has it been?” Joe whispers. He wants to believe this. There is a part of him that already believes it. It is the same part of him screaming  _ what have I done, why didn’t I look for him? _ Joe is so afraid. 

“Four years,” Nicky whispers. 

Joe feels a sound tear out of his throat, a sound he has never heard himself make before. There are no words for the way his pain is warring with his relief. 

“Nicolo, I’m  _ sorry _ ,” he gasps out. He can never forgive himself for this. 

Nicky is crying, holding him tighter, rocking Joe or rocking himself, Joe isn’t sure. Joe finally, finally moves his arms, clings at Nicky, fists his hands in the fabric of Nicky’s shirt, pulls him closer as though the two of them could meld together into one being, never parted again. 

“Yusuf, Yusuf, Yusuf,” Nicky is sobbing. 

_ Four years. _

“I’m sorry,” Joe gasps. “Forgive me.” He had left Nicky in the hands of enemies for  _ four years.  _ He hadn’t even looked for him. 

“There is nothing to forgive, Joe,” Nicky tells him. 

Joe whimpers. “I didn’t even try, Nicky. I gave up. I didn’t try to find you, or even try to live. I’m  _ sorry. _ ”

“Yusuf, Joe, my love, Yusuf, Joe, I forgive you, Yusuf, Yusuf, Yusuf.” Nicky is gasping his name like it is the only thing that makes sense, and Joe wants to scream in fury at himself. 

“They hurt you,” Joe says instead, voice raw, horrified. “They hurt you for four years and I wasn’t there.  _ Nicolo _ .”

Nicky shudders, chokes on a sob. 

“They hurt you,” Joe moans again.

Nicky whimpers. “They hurt me,” he agrees, and Joe holds him tighter, shifting until Nicky is tucked against his chest rather than the other way around. Nicky curls against him, crying, shaking, and Joe clings back, horrified, heartbroken, and yet more alive than he has been in years. 

There will be time later for them to talk properly. Time for them to go over everything that had happened while they were apart, trusting each other with each and every memory. Time for them to reconnect. Time for Joe to apologize more, to see the others and apologize to them. Time to thank Nile and Andy and Booker. 

For now, they cling to each other, and Joe feels grounded in his own body for the first time in so long.

Joe buries his face in Nicky’s hair, whispering apologies and promises, but mostly just whispering Nicky’s name.

In turn, Nicky clings to him just as tightly, his presence in Joe’s arms more familiar to Joe than the act of breathing. 

Time passes. Joe doesn’t know when he drifts off to sleep, but when he wakes, Nicky is still there.

Time passes, and they hold each other. Joe breathes, and for the first time in four years, he feels  _ alive _ .

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I definitely think this is a bit out of character for Joe. I think he would manage to pull himself together here, at least a little bit, for Nile’s sake if nothing else -- because that’s what both he and Nicky would expect of him. He wouldn’t be the same, obviously. I think he’d be a bit of a shell. But I do think he’d put on the act of functionality, for Nile. 
> 
> But then my brain was like, “Okay, but what if Joe thought Nicky had died and he just… laid down and never got up again?” But then also I didn’t want to actually kill Nicky. So now here we are.
> 
> Also I personally headcanon that Nicky and Joe will lose their immortality at the same time, just like they gained it at the same time. But that’s mostly because I literally cannot bear the thought of any other scenario. 
> 
> But based on the look they share when Andy first explains to Nile that they will die eventually, I don’t think that Nicky and Joe believe that they’ll die at the same time. I’m sure they hope for it, but that look was far too sad for me to think they actually have any faith in it being true. Which is why Joe so easily believes that Nicky is dead in this fic -- because I think it’s his greatest fear, and I don’t think he ever had any real faith that it *wouldn’t* come true.


End file.
